Anxiety about hurting people?

[Ssmith]

Hi guys,

So alongside my depression and anxiety, or a consequence of them, is that i get extreme irritability. Really small things can get me angry and alongside tiredness, it really scares me when I'm like this. I start having intrusive thoughts that i could hurt someone when I'm like this, like lose control and attack someone. I try to convince myself it's just an intrusive thought and I'm not a violent person but it feels so real and it terrifies me. It's stopping me from going out with people and doing things because I'm worried I'll snap so I'd much rather stay in. Does anyone else have this and if so, is there any tips?

[MyNameIsTerry]

Irritability is common with anxiety. The thing is though, it's common with pain in general so we shouldn't think any differentely. Someone in pain from a broken leg will get irritable so why can't we? If anything, we have more mental processes in play that open the door for being a bit snappy compared to many physical pains.

Intrusive thoughts are known as "ego dystonic" which means the opposite of your true character and beliefs. These deep beliefs (schemas) are used in your thought processes so by having them there, they won't allow you to think that something you see as abhorent to you is anything other than wrong. From there your conscious mind will do it's thing to try to understand more about it, hence how we can try to understand even the bad actions of others.

I hate to tell you this but avoidance is a known negative action here, just like it is in anxiety in general. You will start to form associations in your subconscious because you are telling it about new situations to add to it's fear responses, as well as giving it clear reasons why so it will attach them to your other worries about the thoughts themselves too.

So, by avoiding these people you will create an association that fear you could harm them. It's like how some people get their partners to hide all the knives or a mother fears being around her child. These actions just make it worse and are ultimately compulsions.

Compulsions always reinforce these OCD issues.

Reaction is key here. If you react with fear or any negative, the area of the brain looking for feedback gets what it needs to know if has done something "valid". Notice the use of the word "valid", not "correct". It can't see positive or neutral feedback hence why it takes a while to change thinking at a subconscious level as you build new heathly associations and the old ones get mothballed in the process.

This is why CBT can work, by challenging thoughts from a positive or neutral angle you influence changes in the subconscious over a length of time. It is very hard at the beginning though as it seems impossible but it can work.

My harm based intrusive thoughts are long gone. I have developed some newer ones about my mental state but I'm dealing with them successfully just like before.

Try to reduce overall levels of anxiety. OCD sufferers will tell you that their intrusive thoughts increase when more anxious in general. So, you try and pull the rug from under it that way and it will become easer to deal with the thoughts as they arise.

Try Mindfulness, this helped me and I think it's great for OCD style issues.